MILLENNIUM (Descendants Saga) Read online

  I pulled myself upright and surveyed my situation. From what I could see, I had fallen nearly half the distance. There was still a good five hundred feet to go in order to touch down. The centaurs had not attempted to follow. The world below was shrouded in mist. It had a musty smell rolling off of it, even at this distance.

  Considering my options I went with a serpent transformation. It was an unpleasant nature to deal with, but for some things a snake just had its advantages. I became a python thick in body and nearly twelve feet long. My journey downward began just as quickly.

  The serpent wound its way through coils and tangles of hairy vines covered in moss. Ever downward I went. After ten or fifteen minutes, the mist that covered this place from above finally swallowed me as well.

  Moisture abounded here—a hot, oppressive humidity that could sap the strength from a man in seconds. In the serpent’s form, however, I found it quite lovely. The mist did not keep me from knowing what lay around me. My environment was revealed through the serpent’s senses—particularly the heat emanating from every living thing.

  Of living things, there were quite a few. Mice and other rodents, reptiles of various varieties and insects in terrible swarms. I had come to a gigantic swamp. There was no telling what dangers awaited here. I was sure that almost anything here was dangerous in one way or another.

  The serpent’s form might have been best, under such conditions, but the gators that emerged here and there in the swamp water changed my mind. A python would make a handsome meal and easy pickings floating on the surface. I reverted back to my human self, extended my shield and began to survey my environment.

  Sadie opened her eyes beneath a sheet of ice. With barely a few millimeters of room to look around, she saw indistinctly that the rabbits had left her, as they had Cole moments before. She only hoped he was still alive.

  Focusing her energies, she first attempted to teleport out of the block she had been entombed within. For whatever reason, it didn’t work. She remained frozen. It was time to employ the heritage left to her from her father—that of fire.

  Calling for heat, she poured it on from the outside, manipulating it as her father had taught her. By now, she could make it do almost anything she desired within reason. Water poured over her, as the ice melted, becoming so much that she was in danger of drowning herself.

  Pouring on more heat, in a desperate last ditch effort that nearly scalded her, she burst through the block. The white rabbits scattered as the block burst. Sadie got to her feet quickly, drenched and cold.

  White rabbits came back at her, as many as before. Cuddly as ever, they only wanted to be held. A desire to spare them battled with her natural instinct to destroy any threat. She hurled a fireball at Cole, pummeling the ice with heat and pressure.

  An idea struck her. She created a sack in her hand with a spell. She opened it in time to scoop up several rabbits leaping at her. More jumped, and she scooped them up as well, clearing a quick path to Cole. Ice was already forming around the sack working quickly up to Sadie’s hands.

  She tossed the bag into her spiritual storage, trapping the rabbits where they could not harm her, or be harmed. Sadie blasted the ground with flames, warning the rabbits away. They got the message and fled from her in droves.

  Cole gasped for air, as the ice cleared his mouth. Sadie drew Malak-esh from the ether, leaving the rabbits in stasis. She laid the blade on the ice and watched it vaporize around Cole. He heaved in his breaths like a man coming up from nearly drowning.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Sadie saw rabbits moving in again. She whirled her finger over her head once, creating a ring of fire around her and Cole, keeping the bunnies at bay. They stayed away, having no recourse but to sit without and wriggle their noses anxiously.

  “Thanks,” Cole said, still gasping for precious air. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Flying will be safer, I think,” Sadie said.

  He nodded, and they set off again. Cole took the form of a raven and Sadie became an eagle. They left the white rabbits behind hopping to catch up, but unable to keep pace.

  Five minutes of flight saw the weather change. The snow-covered ground faded behind them, giving way to green grass and vegetation. They were making good time. Hopefully, they wouldn’t face anything more dangerous than the rabbits here.

  “Wind is picking up,” Sadie called to Cole.

  In fact, it had quickly become a gale in seconds. The leaves flew from the trees and the dust and dead vegetation whipped up into the air. Cole and Sadie struggled to maintain flight.

  “What is that?” Cole called to her over the wind.

  Sadie focused her eagle’s eyes, but couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “A flock of birds?”

  Tiny blue birds swooped and swirled all around them, bringing terrible winds in their wake. They chirped and called to one another merrily, like songbirds on a spring day. However, tornadic winds followed them everywhere they went.

  Cole and Sadie were tossed like kites in a tornado. Failing to maintain their flying forms, they tumbled back to the earth as their human selves. A hurricane had come upon them in an instant, stirred up by these cursed blue birds of destruction.

  “What sort of crazed place is this?” Sadie cried over the gale whipping her hair across her face. “Bunnies that freeze you with their touch and birds that stir up whirlwinds with their wings?”

  “And horses of fire!” Cole shouted.

  “What?” Sadie asked, unsure if she had heard him right.

  Cole pointed ahead where the trees opened onto a barren plain. Indeed, stampeding toward them was an entire herd of fiery horses, nostrils pouring out smoke, their hooves sparking across the rocky terrain as they charged. As they approached, the front line increased in width. There was no way to get around them to their destination.

  “Why did we ever come to this cursed place?” Sadie shouted in her frustration. “Everything is set against us!”

  “They’re protecting the dragon just like Ishbe warned us they would,” he said.

  “We cannot go back, or fly,” Sadie said, seeming utterly exhausted.

  “We go forward,” Cole said. “We came to save our families. We must not lose hope now!”

  “I can’t go on,” Sadie said.

  “Then hold on to me,” he said.

  Cole mustered his energies. “My father taught me this one!” he shouted as he became a unicorn.

  Sadie admired his transformation into the one-horned rhinoceros. Cole’s tough, armored hide would help to protect him against the flames rising from the red stallions coming toward them at speed. His bulk and huge horn would allow him to ram through them.

  “Get on!” he shouted over the fierce winds still beating down from the swarming birds.

  Sadie conjured a chain around Cole’s massive neck and shoulders and climbed onboard. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said.

  Cole responded with a bellowing roar and then charged at the oncoming herd. He picked up speed gradually, but soon he was moving dangerously fast. Sadie held on for dear life. Riding a charging rhinoceros wasn’t exactly comfortable, but she had little choice.

  The fiery horses did not slacken their pace, but kept on coming, despite the rhino barreling toward them. When Cole got within range, and the horses did not veer away, he dropped his horn and bellowed out his rage again. His massive head pummeled first one and then another flaming stallion out of their way. He swung back in the other direction and sent one of the horses flying off of its feet into more of its fellows.

  Sadie gritted her teeth before each collision only to have them nearly shaken from her jaw upon each new impact. Cole’s pace slowed considerably now. Driving his bulk into these beasts had forced him almost to a standstill. However, with the loss of momentum came the loss of his advantage.

  The stallions encircled them now, their flames increasing the ambient temperature of the air around the rhino and his rider. Sadie, seated up high on Cole’s back,
could now see what must be their destination far ahead. A swamp awaited them with birds wading in the waters. Certainly these stallions could not follow them there.

  “We must push through!” she shouted to Cole. “A swamp lies ahead where the horses cannot go!”

  But Cole had been surrounded completely by now. The horses were certainly wary of his size and demeanor. They feared the horn he swung wildly at them. However, they realized already that in order to win this contest they only had to keep close enough to let their heat do its deadly work.

  Even Sadie, whose heritage gave her startling ability with fire, was not immune to the oppressive, searing heat building around them now. They were being enveloped by a living, breathing inferno. They had to break through somehow, or they would both die in moments.

  “Can you shield us both?” Cole cried.

  “It won’t keep out the constant heat,” she called back.

  “I think I liked being frozen better than this!” he shouted in his frustration.

  “Frozen!” Sadie cried out.

  From the ether, Sadie brought out the bag of white rabbits she had captured earlier. While kept in stasis within her dimensional pocket of space, they had presented no danger whatsoever. Brought out again, they regained their potent abilities.

  Sadie grabbed the bottom of the sack and flung its contents toward the horses blocking them from their destination. The horses, for a moment, did not seem to regard the little white balls of fluff coming at them. After all, they were horses of fire. At least, they didn’t regard them until the first horse was touched by one of the little beasts.

  The fiery stallion jerked back abruptly as its flames were snuffed out. A sheet of ice raced over its body, incapacitating it completely. The bunnies, now freed from their sleepy prison, were quite anxious to hop about with their equine elemental cousins, bounding into as many as they could reach.

  Half a dozen flaming stallions were extinguished in seconds. The others ran terrified for safety—as far from the white rabbits as they could get. Cole bellowed gleefully now, charging through several frozen horses, knocking them out of his way. He raced toward the swamp with Sadie still riding like a bronco buster.

  Another transformation took him down in size, taking the form of a black stallion. Sadie adjusted and held on. At least, now, they could match speed for speed as the flaming horses made a last ditch effort to intercept them before they could reach water. Still, the rabbits had done their work. Cole and Sadie simply had too much of a head start now to be overtaken.

  Anai

  A tremor swept through Galidel as Lucifer arrived in the thickly planted jungle forest. The home of the sprites was truly a beautiful place to behold. Many wonders could be found on the spiritual plane. It was a shame that it would all soon end.

  He considered the vibration that had passed through the ground beneath his feet, sweeping up through every plant and tree. Creating the slightest ripples among the waters throughout the jungle. This tremor had not originated with him. Almost certainly, only a handful of Galidel’s inhabitants had even noticed it. Fewer still would understand its cause.

  Lucifer, however, could already sense the waking motions of the great dragon trapped in the Underworld. This could only be caused by one event. Those intrepid souls traveling through the Realm of Abominations must be drawing near to the place of its confinement.

  It would know someone was coming, be able to feel the vibrations of battle as the Almighty’s sentinels failed to keep the children and Brody at bay. For all Lucifer knew, the cherubim might even be able to influence the game somehow. They desired release. They wanted to ruin what they had once created, along with all of the souls now dwelling upon the spiritual plane.

  As for those thousands of Descendants, Lucifer cared nothing for their demise. They held no value in his eyes, unless they could be manipulated for his purposes. Surely, some of them would flee for the mortal world of humans. Many more would perish before they understood the doom that had come upon them. They would surely never realize its source.

  In this jungle realm of the sprites, only one woman held any interest for him. Anai and her son lived out here in the deep jungle away from the other sprites of Galidel. Over ten years ago, Anai had consorted with entirely the wrong sort of dashing young man. A child had resulted. A child whom Lucifer meant to see survive the terrible calamity about to sweep away Galidel and everyone in it.

  From the ground, the angel swept up through the trees. Anai’s home had been built among the branches of a baobab tree just like her younger sister, Luxana, back in Galidel’s main treetop city. Lucifer hovered before the entrance, watching and listening for any signs of its residents. So far, nothing.

  He turned suddenly, stopping an arrow in flight a mere hair’s breadth from his face. Lucifer smiled. The boy had remained silent as a ghost. His camouflage among the branches of a nearby tree was flawless. Only when he opened his eyes could he be distinguished from the surrounding foliage.

  As Lucifer began to address the boy hiding among the trees, the arrow shaft turned to ash between his fingers. “Nicely executed,” he said. “Where is your mother?”

  “Here,” Anai said from behind him.

  He turned to find her hovering before the doorway to their modest home. “You’ve taught the boy well,” he commented.

  “Why are you here, my lord?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Paranoid?”

  “Always,” she replied.

  Lucifer smiled. “Good, that shows you’ve been listening to me all these years.”

  The angel swept past her and into their home. He did not sit down, but remained in the center of the room as Anai followed him inside. Her son leaped from his perch thirty yards away, landing softly upon the deck outside.

  “The boy is too young yet,” Anai began.

  “Cool your motherly impulses,” Lucifer answered. “I’ve not come to call your son into my service. In fact, you might consider this visit a mission of mercy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A terrible destruction will soon be visited upon Galidel,” Lucifer explained. “There will be no place upon the spiritual plane that survives this calamity.”

  “What is happening?” she asked skeptically.

  “The beings that created these realms where you Descendants have your homes are awakening. Though they have been trapped in the Underworld by the Almighty for millennia, they will soon be set free.”

  “Why?” she asked. “Have you done this?”

  “Every evil that comes to pass isn’t caused by me,” Lucifer retorted. “It is Black who has brought this to pass. I have come to warn you. Take the boy and flee for the human world. I have prepared a place for you both in Austria. A man there, with three children, is ready to receive you at my instruction.”

  “What about the others?” Anai asked. “I have to warn my sister.”

  “You needn’t bother,” Lucifer said. “Luxana already knows.”

  Anai paused. “She knows?”

  Lucifer pretended to look surprised. “What, you mean she didn’t tell you?”

  “No,” Anai answered, “she didn’t say a word.”

  Lucifer grinned. “Sibling rivalry, I suppose.”

  He started to leave, floating through the doorway. Anai’s son waited on the deck with his bow, his greenish yellow and brown camouflage starkly contrasted by the plain construction around him.

  “Mind your mother,” Lucifer said in passing. “She’ll keep you safe until I call for you, Adolf.”

  The boy nodded, never taking his eyes off of their angelic benefactor. He had known this being all of his life. Lucifer had been careful to always check on him and his mother several times a year. Despite the angel’s malevolent reputation, the boy had only seen kindness and wisdom from him.

  Anai came to the door. “When will this destruction come? When do we have to leave?”

  “Gather what you need and do not delay,” Lucifer replied, now suspended hi
gh over the jungle floor below. “Go to Braunau, Austria, as soon as possible. My servant will be expecting you.”

  Anai called after him as the angel turned to depart Galidel. “What is the man’s name?”

  “His name is Alois,” Lucifer called back. “Alois Hitler.”

  Gladstone

  William Gladstone waited within the newly dedicated Crystal Palace at Hyde Park in London. Following the reconstruction efforts for the main part of the city, beginning with Buckingham Palace and Westminster, the prime minister had set his sights on rebuilding the great exhibition hall where it had once stood as an architectural wonder and testimony to London’s forward thinking. Years of toil restoring the major portions of the damage to London had finally brought them to the place where such a project could be completed.

  The Crystal Palace was brimming with socialites from England and abroad for the ceremony that had marked ten years since the building’s destruction. Gladstone waited while his entourage of security personnel and underling politicians arranged for his departure. A Karl Benz model motorcar had been brought out, honoring the spirit of the occasion.

  Gladstone watched as his personal driver came up the front drive to convey him away. His security guards moved well-wishers out of his path, as he exited the building. A few steps later, Gladstone seated himself beside the driver, offering friendly waves to the crowd as the door closed behind him, and the car pulled away from the Crystal Palace.

  A windscreen made of plate glass kept the bugs at bay, but Gladstone wore the goggles the driver offered him just the same. He realized, almost as an afterthought, that this man beside him piloting the vehicle was not Henry Johnson. His usual coach driver also drove the motorcar for him on these celebration days for special ceremonies.

  Henry had blonde hair and a mustache with long sideburns. This man possessed dark hair and was clean shaven.